Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
you could just say, ‘ok, so we want to change a Degree.’”
(Participant 7: 334-340).
Some people actually saw this development process as part of their
work, and therefore found that the time was used well. “It did not
impact on my personal life at all. It didn’t impact on my work life,
because my work was courses generate an enormous amount of
work. We don’t just lecture, we are all on a marketing team, liaison
team, committees in the role of curriculum development dom. It
was part of my job to actually be part of that process” (Participant
9: 42-46). And: “But it was the fact that the people were all
working fulltime, the all had full time commitments. Then they were
taking time out to support MIT degree development. I guess that
was partly as part of their job” (Participant 7:67-72). If the
stakeholders saw their contribution as being “part of their jobs”, it
might also explain the reason for them attending regularly.
Some of the stakeholders also mentioned the fact, that they
experienced the process as being time consuming and infringing on
their own free time. “No, I think the constraints of time, you know,
fitting it in to your busy day. The ability to block out more time.
Thinking about the, I don’t get tied up on the …. Of what we are
teaching. It is more collaboration, but after just ….” (Participant 2:
217-222). One could also develop strategies to cope with the stress
by not mentioning the fact that one might have a free slot on a time
table. “I some other examples, our timetables are always so full
and we are all very busy and there is not sort of gaps to do that. If
you look like you have a gap, you don’t admit to it, don’t tell
anybody” (FGR: 859-863). Lack of time was a recurrent theme
mentioned by several stakeholders, for example “He asked me
about my project that I am doing and I just laughed at him, and he
just laughs back at me.
I think the nursing, there are appeals, there is all the sort of
pastoral care that you get involved in” (FGR: 704-711). This item
seemed to have caused the most stress amongst the stakeholders.
When repeating the process at some future point in time, this
aspect will need looking at in greater depth.
The reasons for the tight time frames were well known to people.
One participant said: “And also too we have not got the staff. There
is a shortage of doctors and nurses.” (Participant 2: 119-120).
And: “There is always this time constraint around the development
of curriculums, because you are always racing to meet a deadline,
no matter how early you start and we started nice and early. You
are racing to meet a deadline and the deadline when it comes up to
hit you, it is has got to go to that standards committee, it has got to
go to NZQA, it has got to go to nursing council, all those sorts of
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